Ontario is Facing a Nursing Crisis Under Doug Ford’s Government

While Ontario’s health care system faces its “worst crisis ever,” Ontario’s biggest nurses union says the province is struggling with staffing shortages in hospitals under Doug Ford’s government. 

According to the Ontario Nurses Association, the union representing more than 68,000 nurses and health care workers across Ontario, the province is struggling to hire and retain nurses – leading to worsening outcomes for care and for the morale of healthcare workers.

“The conditions of work are the conditions of care,” ONA President Erin Ariss told PressProgress.

“When you are working in a system that is 25,000 registered nurses short, you are doing the work of many and trying to do the best you can,” Ariss said. “No nurse comes to work wanting to do a mediocre job – they want to do the best for their patients.” 

“Right now, that is impossible under the current work conditions.”

With Ontario’s healthcare system overloaded and burnt out nurses leaving the profession after being overworked and underpaid, Ariss says the Ford government’s underspending on health is a key contributor to the dire situation.

“They’ve underspent by $1.7 billion in their health care budget alone,” Ariss noted. “There’s uncertainty from the government and rather than working on a healthcare system and working to improve a healthcare system that is quite frankly in chaos, the government has chosen to call a snap election.”

“When really at this point in time, and we’ve been demanding this for a while, but at this point in time the government should be working on solutions in health care rather than campaigning.”

Ariss points to data from the College of Nurses of Ontario, for every 10 nurses hired, six are leaving their job.

“Ontario is in a very difficult position right now and unfortunately not much is being done by the government to rectify that,” Ariss added.

Ariss’ criticisms are backed-up by data in other studies. A 2024 study done in collaboration with the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions/Canadian Union of Public Employees (OCHU/CUPE) found that in Ontario, “health care workers and the public have increasingly confronted the risk of harm” brought upon by deteriorating conditions.

The study, entitled “Running on Empty,” highlights how staff are facing workload challenges, stress and overwork caused by chronic understaffing.

“They are experiencing negative physical and mental effects, including stress and anxiety. Burnout and negative coping strategies have also increased and patient care is compromised,” the study says.

Ariss notes that the government’s efforts towards offering private health care have detracted from the public system, draining it of necessary funding and staff.

“When you have a system that is already short 25,000 Registered Nurses and you have a parallel system opening before our eyes in Ontario that draws more staff out of an already short system and makes the public system even less capable—wait times will become longer, there will be more delays in emergency departments, there will be more closures of emergency departments like we’ve seen,” Ariss said.

“It is not in the best interest of Ontarians to privatize our system. It’s in the best interest to spend the money that this government has budgeted and invest in the system that we have.

Instead, Ariss says wages for nurses are far from adequate.

“While the premier is campaigning, there are nurses in this province that are relying on food banks. That they can’t afford to feed their families. That they can’t afford to put gas in their cars. And that is mostly because of the conservative policies.”

There is also a gendered dynamic to the investment or lack thereof put into nursing, a predominantly female-dominated industry, and ONA would like to see the government take action to address this.

“We need to see compensation that is in line with male sectors that are at the same risk as us and we’re not seeing that,” Ariss said.

“In addition to that, we need to see a commitment to nursing students—so an increase in spaces in universities for nursing programs, paid tuition like our counterparts in policing have and paid clinical placements like our colleagues in medicine receive. We brought all of this to the government’s attention. We would be looking for more of a commitment from the next government whoever that may be.”